The Scarlet Empress | Full Movie | Movies Anywhere

Name: The Scarlet Empress
Released: 1934-9-15
Cast: Marlene Dietrich, John Lodge, Sam Jaffe, Louise Dresser, C. Aubrey Smith

The Scarlet Empress

UR
1h 44m
1934

87%

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Forced to wed Peter, Russia's cruel and foolish Grand Duke, Princess Catherine's dreams shatter. Trapped in a loveless marriage, she seeks comfort elsewhere, bearing a son and provoking Peter's murderous wrath. As his tyranny threatens Russia, Catherine rallies loyal troops and a bold officer to overthrow the mad czar and seize the throne.

Director:

Josef von Sternberg

Producer:

Josef von Sternberg

Writer:

Manuel Komroff

Cast:

Marlene Dietrich, John Lodge, Sam Jaffe, Louise Dresser, C. Aubrey Smith, Gavin Gordon, Olive Tell, Ruthelma Stevens, Davison Clark, Erville Alderson, Phillip Sleeman, Marie Wells, Hans von Twardowski, Gerald Fielding, Maria

Rotten Tomatoes® Score

TOMATOMETER®

87%

Critics Consensus: Complex, visually stunning, and breathtakingly intense, The Scarlet Empress overpowers its flaws with a confident vigor befitting its legendary subject.

Reviews

TheArtsStl

Sarah Boslaugh

...the point is spectacle, not historical accuracy, and as spectacle The Scarlet Empress is a great success.

...it looks amazing, it is probably blasphemous, it’s in keeping with the movie’s overall fantasy of Savage Russia...

How best to describe The Scarlet Empress? Delirious? Demented? Diabolical? This historical epic is perhaps the best of the Dietrich-von Sternberg collaborations, so naturally it was a commercial disaster.

This glamorous, sadistic fabrication appears one long procession of derivative ideas.

Josef von Sternberg makes the cruelty the point in his lurid and macabre spectacle about the rise to absolute power of Catherine the Great, of Russia, who's played with an arachnid subtlety by Marlene Dietrich.

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FULL REVIEW